Full summary: Kira didn't really mind that she was the only one of her friends who read manga. But suddenly she and two others who have never seen manga before find themselves in the Land of the Waves. Now Kira finds that she has to help her friends survive in a strange new world and somehow eventually get home. But things don't always go the way they should, and before long she, Katerina, and Hanna, are discovering things about themselves that they never knew…

Well, that's the full summary. Give it a chance before you dismiss it as a tactless self insertion fic. It just might surprise you. ;D

Kira, Kat, and Hanna are my characters. Tsunami and those to come belong to Kishimoto Masashi.

"Okay, I admit it, we're lost," I said with a sigh. I leaned against a tree, arms crossed, looking more perplexed than I had first woken up that afternoon in the middle of a forest. Somewhere to my left, my two friends Hanna and Katerina watched me struggle to figure things out. I glanced over at them. They'd ended up the same way I had: waking up in a strange place wearing nothing but their pajamas. After much confusion and panicking, Kat had suggested that we try and find civilization. Unfortunately, none of us had any sense of direction, yet despite my frequent protests I'd wound up leading the way. Just my luck.

Anyhow, several hours –or what I assumed was several hours since none of us had a watch- of fighting our way through the underbrush had left us hungry, tired, and with really sore feet. And it was really starting to show. Kat looked uncharacteristically annoyed and Hanna was wearing a scowl. She let out a derisive snort, her eyebrows raised as she stared at me. She seemed to be waiting for me to show some signs of discomfort like they were.

"Then why did you pretend to know where you were going?" she asked.

"I didn't pretend," I said defensively, "I told you already, it just felt like I've been here before. That's all. It's not my fault you thought my déjà vu made me a compass."

Hanna just put her hands on her hips, pouting. I did my best to disregard this. "Look, we still need to find a way out of this place, and to make things even better," I pointed toward the sky, "I think it's going to get dark soon, and I'd prefer not to sleep on the ground."

"Then what are we waiting for?" said Hanna.

"One of us has to pick a direction," I said, "Kat, care to do the honors?"

Kat looked surprised, but nodded. Her eyes darted around as she observed our surroundings. After about a minute she pointed to her left. I looked at her. She nodded. Repeat with Hanna, who also seemed to trust Kat's decision.

"Alrighty then."

And we were off again. We had barely gone two feet when Hanna looked up in surprise.

"What?"

"Ssh… I hear something," said Hanna. We all stopped walking and stood motionless. Hanna's eyes were darting about, trying to locate the source of whatever noise she had heard. Kat and I strained our ears and soon heard it too. We could hear a rustling in the bushes somewhere close by, and whoever was making the noise was humming. I craned my neck to see who it was, and only after a second did I recognized the person in the clearing.

It was a person I'd only seen before on TV and in manga. Tsunami crouched in the clearing, picking a few herbs from what I could tell. My stomach lurched. If she was here in the same place we were… that meant…

My knees almost gave out under me as I finally realized where we were. This was the Land of the Waves. I gulped. We could be in a really bad place if we ran into the wrong people, but at least I had some idea of where we were. Sort of.

I gave Hanna and Kat a reassuring grin and, ignoring their incredulous expressions, walked right through the bushes and into the clearing. Tsunami started at my appearance and stood up hastily. I just tried to look as though I wasn't nervous as all hell.

"Um… hi."

"Who are you?" said Tsunami warily.

"I'm Kira," I said, shooting a look at Kat and Hanna and motioning for them to come along. Tsunami tensed up again.

"What's going on? Is someone else there?"

I motioned for Kat and Hanna to come out.

"Geez, she's not paranoid," muttered Hanna as she fought her way through a thorn bush.

"Heh, sorry if we scared you," I said lamely, "But we're kind of lost and we were hoping you could help us out."

Tsunami eyed us for a few seconds as though sizing us up. "You're not ninja or anything?"

Kat looked at her questioningly and Hanna snorted.

"Ninjas? Is she kidding?"

I ignored this. Tsunami looked at Hanna suspiciously.

"Nope, sorry to disappoint. We're just hopelessly lost," I said with a shrug, "Do you think you could show us the way to town? I swear we're not ninja. I can barely fight my way out of a paper bag."

Okay I admit it, the last part was kind of a lie. Neither Kat, Hanna, or I were particularly violent, but I knew we could put up one hell of a fight if the situation demanded it. Tsunami gave us a hard stare, and then nodded. I could tell she didn't completely trust us, but how dangerous could three girls in pajamas be compared to ninjas?

Tsunami jerked her thumb in the direction we'd been heading before we ran into her, a small smile playing her lips. That simple gesture dissolved the tension. "All right, I'll show you. You three were pretty close already; town's just a little ways away."

I let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you so much, we've been searching all day."

"And you wouldn't believe how much that sucked when you don't even have shoes," added Kat, making Hanna snort and then yelp as she herself stepped on a thorn. Tsunami chuckled as she bent down to pick up her basket.

"My name's Tsunami. It sounds like you three have had an eventful day," she said, still eyeing us a bit warily. Hanna nodded.

"You know it," she said, and after a moments thought added, "I'm Hanna, by the way."

"I'm Katerina," chimed in Kat. Tsunami nodded and we were off.

After that the four of us walked in near silence, broken only by a few questions on Tsunami's part. I was glad when Tsunami asked me what we were doing in the middle of the forest in the first place. I all but leapt at the opportunity to construct a cover story: Kat, Hanna and I had had been traveling to the Land of the Waves to meet some relatives from the next island over. Unfortunately our boat had gotten caught in a squall, we had lost our stuff, and had wound up on a nearby beach.

I felt kind of bad about lying to her, but what would I have said, that we didn't even know how we got here and we had just woken up in the middle of a forest? We barely believed it ourselves. Imagine my amazement when Tsunami believed my story. She even offered to let us stay the night at her house since we had nowhere to go!

At these words, Hanna yelped and cursed. Everybody turned to look at her and see what was wrong.

"Sorry, it's just another thorn, I've been stepping on them all day," Hanna growled through clenched teeth, "'Cept this one doesn't seem to want to come out. Can someone give me a hand?"

I nodded, suddenly struck by an idea. "Why don't you two go on ahead, we won't be long and we can catch up easily enough." I said.

If Tsunami didn't catch the subtext in that, Kat certainly did. She nodded and started walking again. I heard her ask why Tsunami was paranoid about ninjas as they got farther away. I bent down to examine Hanna's foot. Sure enough, there was a large thorn sticking out of it. The small wound was oozing blood.

"Eew. You'd better hope that doesn't get infected before we can get a hold of some shoes." I said. My lame obsession with medical shows was finally coming in handy, "Got a strip of cloth or something to wrap it in?"

"Yeah, because I carry gauze with me everywhere," said Hanna sarcastically. Before I could respond, she had pulled the thorn out of her foot with another hiss of pain. I opened my mouth to berate her for doing so, but she fixed me with an unusually hard stare. "Look, I know you're trying to make sure we find shelter and junk, but are you sure we can trust this Tsunami woman?" she asked.

I bit my lip. How to explain this? A thousand little excuses raced through my head, but none of them would fool Hanna. I settled on the truth, which shouldn't cause too many problems. Hanna's imagination was almost as overactive as mine.

"It's a long story, but I'll only tell you if you promise me you won't flip out." I said, folding my arms over my chest. Hanna smirked at me.

"This'll be good. Go on. Spill."

"Promise you won't flip out first." I said stubbornly.

"Okay, okay, I promise." Hanna was looking supremely amused.

I took a deep breath. "Well I'm not completely sure, but… I think we're in a comic book that I read about ninjas and Tsunami's one of the characters." I blurted out.

Hanna stared at me for a second. Then she started to crack up.

"You think… that we're in a… comic book?!" she cackled, the pain in her foot forgotten as she fell backwards in hysterics.

"Hanna shut up! Someone might hear us!"

"Comic… book…"

"HANNA!" I barked, praying that Tsunami and Kat couldn't hear her. Hanna gave a last snort of mirth and sat back up.

"Sorry, it's just you have to admit that's pretty crazy," she said, still grinning.

"Maybe it is. But crazy or not, I'm almost 100 percent sure I'm right, and if I am, that's going to cause problems."

"Oh really?" Hanna looked skeptical.

"Yes, really. I'll tell you guys when I get the chance, but you and Kat don't have a clue about this world… universe…" I sighed, "Whatever this is. All we can do is try to stay together and stay alive. I think I know where we can go that should be safer, but it'll be hard to get there and there's no guarantee I'm right."

Hanna was staring at me. I could bring myself to meet her gaze. There was no doubt in my mind she thought I had gone completely nuts. Maybe I had. But something in her expression told me she was starting to believe me. Just that little bit was a huge relief. I didn't know what I would do if she had decided I was making the whole thing up. After a second, Hanna sighed and stood up, wincing as weight was put onto the spot where she'd stepped on the thorn.

"Okay then, say I do believe you. Now what?"

"Well I've got to find Kat and tell her too," I said, biting my thumb as I tried to come up with some kind of plan. Hanna was suddenly looking like she was about to crack up. I shot her a look, "I know you're probably not taking this seriously, but there are ninja out there. Some of them won't hesitate to kill us, so get used to the word so you don't start cracking up every time some one says 'ninja'."

When I looked over, Hanna was stifling a laugh. We were so doomed.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Tsunami had been right, we hadn't been too far from town, I thought as the four of us emerged from the forest a good half hour later. It was close to sunset now. The sun was dipping into the west, casting a final few pools of light on the terrain before its eventual surrender to the night. I looked out at the choppy ocean. I could see the bridge in the distance, propped up beneath a rosy sky, but much to my surprise, it still hadn't been finished. I squinted through my glasses to see if there was anybody at the bridge. I heard Tsunami sigh behind me.

"They should have finished that bridge ages ago," she said almost wistfully. We looked at her curiously. At least Kat and Hanna did. I had a feeling about where this was going.

"Really? Why?" asked Kat. Tsunami looked at her almost pityingly.

"You three must really not be from around her if you don't know. Haven't you heard…" her voice dropped to a whisper, as though she was afraid the wrong person might hear, "About how Gato has been taking over?"

"I've heard rumors, but I thought it was just that." I said, ignoring Kat and Hanna's confused looks.

"I wish they were," said Tsunami with a sigh, "But I'm afraid it's all too real. That bridge over there was supposed to connect us to the mainland and bring trade, but Gato's so called 'business tactics' have been scaring people so much they don't want to keep building the bridge and risk being killed by Gato's thugs," Tsunami's grip on her basket tightened, "My father is one of those men who are working on the bridge."

Hanna, Kat and I looked at each other. I could tell they were interested at the mention of the manga equivalent of a mob boss.

"Has your father stopped working on the bridge too?" asked Kat, looking concerned.

"No. He's overseeing the construction and can't afford to back out. In fact he refuses to. He probably wants trade from the mainland more than anyone."

Hanna whistled, impressed. "Well kudos to him, guy's got guts."

"I'm glad to hear that, most people think he's stupid because of it," Tsunami's lips curved in a sad little smile as she said this, "But I suppose you can tell him that yourself when he gets back."

"Believe me, I will," said Hanna with a little salute. Tsunami chuckled, but something about her expression still struck me as sad.

We reached Tsunami's house a scant five minutes later. It was a quaint little place, but it gave a distinct impression of coziness. Once inside, Tsunami promptly called for Inari and told him to show the three of us to the guest room. I bit back a laugh when I heard his complaint about having strangers stay at his house and his mother's sharp retort about being so rude to their guests.

"Oh no, don't worry about that, we'll be fine," I said when Tsunami apologized for the three of us having to share a room. Hanna looked a bit reluctant, but I elbowed her in the side. Kat saw this and grinned.

"We're just glad to have a place to stay," she said. Tsunami looked at us skeptically, then just shook her head and left.

The three of us filtered into the room. It was small, but I was sure we could all squeeze in with a bit of effort. A couple futons were stuffed into a corner. I watched Hanna wander over and try to place them accordingly around the room. Kat looked at me questioningly, but I just shrugged and went over to take out some blankets.

"So, Kira. What's this about us being in a comic book?" asked Hanna suddenly, making me jump. I glanced over at her, and then at Kat, who looked curious.

"Well… uh… I have no idea how, but think we're in a comic," I began awkwardly, "And Tsunami and her dad and everyone else are characters in it. I have no idea how we got here, but…" I trailed off, suddenly unsure of what I was saying. Kat raised an eyebrow.

"Kira, I know you're prone to crazy ideas and stuff, but are you positive?"

"Do you have any better ideas then?" I shot back.

"Good point," said Kat, who was apparently taking this better than Hanna first had, "Well then, if you're so knowledgeable about this place, then don't leave the rest of us in the dark. Give us the lowdown."

I tried not to laugh. "Oh jeez, where to start."

"Start with the fiasco about the bridge," suggested Hanna.

I nodded, staring at the wall as I pieced together the right information. When I looked back at Kat and Hanna, I suddenly found myself strangely self conscious. All of a sudden I could feel the last rays of the sun filtering in through the window, was aware of Kat and Hanna's interested expressions as they waited for me to explain. I hesitated. A little voice in the back of my head was telling me to just go to sleep; that when up again back in our own beds and be chatting avidly about our crazy dreams at school the next day. I quashed it quickly. That might be, but if we didn't, I couldn't keep Kat and Hanna in the dark about this world we were now in.

I took a deep breath and started to speak.

I hope you enjoyed! More should come soon. It'll be more exciting then, I swear.